flagrag

I think the problem with replacing Lambert at the minute is his father he is the commercial manager at Peterborough and has.brought in quite a bit of local sponsorship and hired the boxes out. Would the promotion want to upset him before giving Simon a change at reserve ? The problem is the Panthers have got lots of fixtures coming up in the next few weeks including quite a few home meetings

Not good news for Leicester Kim Nilsson has won the SEC meeting in France tonight so that will be both him and Gomolski missing from the Wolves meeting on 20th May with current rules say no Premiership guest or RR just NL or under 4 Championship replacement

It does seem strange that they announced Graverson and Howe who have proper Leicester connections and then replaced them with Hall (Who most Lions fans can't stand) and Matt Williamson I wonder if it came down to money.

RMC - Yes the Polish broadcaster always got a clean feed from Elite league as well as dirty feed with graphics only and the edit cut if they wanted. I would say it is a bit more difficult for them to produce a clean feed in Poland than UK as don't have the benefit of BT media switching but to nothing that couldn't be done In a couple of hours work. It will be interesting to see what Premier sports get I suspect it will be full dirty broadcast then will edit and over dub UK comms

The Polish league was offered to Sky sports again but only on the host broadcasters I think N+ terms. Unless anything has changed since Feb they refuse to provide a clean feed so with no commentary and options to cut to UK presentation like how C More do Sweden. Due to this the only way to do a live match would be send own comms team and have own satellite uplink from track a very expensive option. So I expect that Premier sports will get a tape of meetings and then Dave Goddard will add his comms on Tuesday mornings so can cut out any meeting delays and Polish interviews. It is good that there is finally a better version to view Extraliga but could be so much better

I see even next Monday away at Rye House Leicester have not got a full side as Gomolski is riding in SEC qualifier so no facility for him although Ayres should be ok to ride and then get up to Wolves for his Cradley meeting in the evening

The track curator at Leicester Terry is not new to this at all In fact is very experienced. He used to be in charge of the track at Brandon and Birmingham along with Redcar this season. As the Leicester Co Promotor Dave Darcy said a few weeks ago to fans the track will take time to settle in and will get better once the quarry is open again after a flooding problem to get some fresh shale to provide more grip and build the levels up.

If a move is made for Lasse I would expect it to be for Josh Auty as you don't want any more doubling up riders than you already have. The only downside I can see is when Sheffield have clashes it will mean missing Bates & Bjerre

The question for Leicester fans is on his performances this year for the Lions would you make a team change in time for the next league fixture and include Lasse Bjerre instead of Josh Auty ? To me I think it makes sense as Lasse seems to have upped his game this year and more committed. I would give Gomolski a bit more time as he has proven that he can be a heatleader and like Buckowski needs time to settle and get equipment set for British tracks which he seems to have done now and was a lot better last night.

I ageee with the majority here that Poole should be allowed a guest for KK this morning due to the early start but he should be at Somerset this evening as there are plenty of options to get here for early afternoon with direct flights available for under £125 to Bristol from Gdansk or Krakow if wanted something more near his mechanic same applies flight into East Midlands from Wroclaw. The question is if this had been a double up rider who knew his fixture clash for this evening had been cancelled last night or this morning he would have been expected to ride at Somerset or get banned

I heard on Saturday that Leicester had booked Nick Morris to replace Danny King if so that would be a good guest on current form.

With regards to meeting length I thought last night was more than acceptable I think heat 1 started at 19:50 and last race started at 21:25 with a 10 minute interval. Two of the worst offenders last night was Hans Anderson who wouldn't settle kept rolling back and KK not sure why every race he would come to the tapes with other riders then turn around go back to bend 3 and then line up must be so some sort of routine for him but this didn't help but of course both ok in rules. Maybe it should be like Poland two mins and then race starts seems to work well. One other thing I have noticed at Leicester is how expensive the food and drink is now I always used to criticise Birmingham for their prices but Leicester is taking it further a Burger,Chips and can of Pepsi £9 that's far too expensive considering could go to sit down Burger restaurant like Gourmet Burger, Byron burger for less than a cheap frozen one at Beaumont Park. In future I will go to the chip shop near the stadium instead.

I think that you may have found that the website administrator has jumped the gun a little bit by adding the revised Swindon date to the fixture list. All clubs have been given their TV fixtures and is just waiting for a press release from BT Sport and BSPA to confirm all the dates and matches.

I know quite a few people keep saying that they are surprised that David Hemsley has been up the track recently but you have to remember that he is still owner of the stadium and also is still a speedway fan he was quite a regular at Coventry and Peterborough before setting Leicester up.

Robert72- I think you will find Jason Doyle very keen to get this meeting on as we all know how he now has a dislike to Saturday nights as it interrupts his plans for Poland on a Sunday. So he will want to get this meeting done if he can as knows he will only have to come back another Saturday and also that at this point of the season will be a nice little earner as obviously no money yet for Polish or Swedish racing

I see the on track action at Leicester press and practice has been cancelled due to the new section of the track not being settled correctly. So just photos and meet the rider section later in the day

Sorry guys I forget about the new average conversion I was looking at his 2016 finishing average, Anyway looks like it has to a British rider so my guess will be Joe Jacobs

If Poole could get him to ride a good option would be Szymon Wozniak as knows all the tracks and had a similar average to Newman last year.

The late change in the team is due to Lebedevs informing the club that he would not be there for the opening meeting and for Somerset as he was required in Poland and also that Wroclaw have said that he will need to practice on Saturdays to be considered for the team until he can prove his form. I am very disappointed that he is not coming as think he would have been exciting and a good signing. Wolbert was just unlucky that the average fitted to make the change, he had also informed the club after signing that he would be doing GP and SEC Qualifying so likely to be some clashes too I also understand that the meetings that King and Bates misses will see good guests being used including some former Lions being Klindt,Paddy H,Lasse,Ludvig

Lebdevs has a number of continental commitments and has now declared he will be doing all the Euro and GP qualifying rounds so more clashes during the season. Also I believe that the club were worried about relations with Wroclaw his Polish club who now have priority on him and has to be remembered what they did with Wozniak last year suddenly just withdrew his start permits for UK

The Netball Coverage is part funded by the governing body and they have a very good sponsor in Vitality who all help to keep Netball on Sky Sports if not i suspect that they would have been in a similar position to Speedway.

OveFundinFan- Sky did not pull out last week this was done a couple of months ago and was first discussed with BSPA at end of last season. There is no technical reason that i can foresee in my experience that would need to postpone the first meeting until June

CookieIpswich- Is that a confirmed list of meetings ? I am quite surprised that they would show both the relegation/promotion meetings and also that would show both sets of semifinals. I thought they may have just chosen the one to broadcast. So far it's all looking good and I await for the confirmation of who the commentators will be I am expecting Kelvin and an other with Natalie doing the presentation

PhilipRising- The conversations I had last week at trade show with some of the BT sports guys and a few equipment vendors was that the OB side of things had been sorted and contracted to Timeline OB who did British GP and World Cup for BSI & BT last year. They have a new unit called RF1 which is a combined 12 camera production unit and Uplink all in one unit which makes it easier to rig and keeps costs down which would be ideal for what is required now. It may be that things have changed around again as they do frequently in this industry especially if costings can be reduced. As you have said I am sure that once the BT team have everything confirmed and the first couple of meetings sorted they will do some official launch. The main thing is that British Speedway is still on tv this year

Can't go into the finer details of the contract and to be honest do not know all the ins and outs as rights acquisitions is not my area. So don't know what deal BSPA have got from this But some simples maths it costs around £35,000 a meeting to produce multiplied by 23-25 meetings and then compare to money that clubs received for having Sky in attendance to compensate for the stay at home fans. Again multiply against meetings televised you will see by not broadcasting massive savings over 500k saved